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tl £nter into his gates with thanksgiving y and into 

his courts with praise ; l<f thankful unto him and bless 
his name. " 

Psalm c : iv. 



In the governmental appointment of a clay to 
be religiously observed there is something exceed- 
ingly gratifying to a man who, while not believing 
in a State religion, believes in a religious state. 
Religion has from the first been the clandestine 
foundation of our Republic, and the most reticent 
symptoms of that fact are always grateful to the 
hearts of such as feel that it is upon the religious 
sanctions that we have to ground the hopes of our 
national-weal and perpetuity. 

The evidences that we are nationally religious 
do not require to be specially conspicuous. It is 
not necessary that the foundation of a building of 
marble or stone should be placed above the 
ground and crowded obtrusively into view, but 
you must have noticed that the more massive a 
structure is, the greater the pains taken to have 
the lower courses of the superficial masonry so 
architectured, so broadened toward the base, as to 
be suggestive of the massiveness and solidity of 
the substructural undergirding. 

And so, as said, we find great comfort in the 
symptomatic designation by governmental author- 

3 



ity of a day that is appointed to express our 
dependence, individual, social and civic, upon the 
God of the American people. It amounts to a 
form of national confession of faith in Jehovah. 

And it follows along naturally enough there to 
say that, profoundly possessed of that sentiment, 
as doubtless the majority of the American People 
are possessed of it, we feel to resent any move- 
ment, in whatsoever quarter made, that even looks 
in the direction of repealing any of those evidences 
that are suggestive to us of the divine foundation 
upon which as a people we rest. That it might 
not be wise to inaugurate any new intimation of 
our " trust in God " may well be. But it is an- 
other thing to efface such suggestions as are 
already in force. Done in the way in which it has 
just been done it is the arbitrary obliteration by 
one individual, — for he is only one in spite of the 
fact that he is the chief executive, — it is the arbi- 
trary obliteration by an individual of a tradition 
in regard to which eighty million people may be 
supposed to have some very decided views, and 
views that are liable, quite liable, to be as valuable 
as those of the chief executive: — a point that is 
made all the more pointed by the fact that the 
motto which now stands upon our coin is there by 
legislative action. 

And farthermore if the author of this action 
had studied into the science of numismatics as pro- 
foundly as he lets us suppose he has studied into 
the science of natural history, he would have dis- 
covered that when in 1861 Hon. Salmon P. Chase, 
Secretary of the Treasury, wrote, — " No nation 
can be strong except in the strength of God, or 

4 



safe except in his defence; the trust of our people 
in God should be declared on our national coins," 
— I say if he had studied into the science of numis- 
matics he would have discovered that Secretary 
Chase in so writing was simply thinking in line 
with the ancient thought of classic Greece and 
Rome, with whom religion and monej were bound 
into the bundle of a single individual conception, 
and their coinage stamped with the images and 
superscriptions of gods and goddesses. 

In a recent Episcopal convention when this 
matter was discussed and a resolution adopted 
disapproving- the act of the- Executive, one mem- 
ber objected on the ground that such resolution 
was a criticism upon the government. Very truly; 
but it must be remembered that we are not living 
in St. Petersburg, nor in Constantinople, nor even 
in Berlin. We are citizens of a republic, where it 
is one of the perquisites of citizenship to express, 
— in a careful and considerate way, of course, — 
opinions upon all questions of public interest, and 
if that perquisite were more freely, — and perhaps 
sometimes more considerately, — availed of, it 
would doubtless be to the advantage both of the 
people and of the government. One thing against 
which, as citizens of a free and generous republic we 
must carefully guard is, the assuming of any attitude 
which shall even seem to accord to an)- individual 
a monopoly either of wisdom or of power. I speak 
that simply out of impassioned devotion to the 
genius of a republican form of government. 

Another matter, in some respects similar, that 
I feel moved to give a moment to in this connec- 
tion, is this. Last February, — as has, at this late 

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date, become publicly known, — action was taken 
by the Board of Education of this city, aiming to 
exercise restraint in the matter of Christmas exer- 
cises in our public schools. Without wishing to 
antagonize any foreign nationality represented in 
our own citizenship, especially a nationality that I 
took such pleasure in warmly eulogizing from my 
pulpit two weeks ago, there are still certain features 
of the existing situation that demand passing 
attention. 

Warmly welcomed and hospitably entertained 
as has been the imported element of our American 
citizenship, we should suppose that such adventi- 
tious citizens would experience a degree of delicacy 
in crowding their imported notions, social, moral 
and religious, upon thoroughbred natives. That 
is not spoken out of disrespect for people foreign 
born or born of foreign parents, but only at the 
impulse of this rather natural feeling that there are 
certain prior rights pertaining to original tenants 
that do not seem so immediately to belong to 
those who were admitted into the house after the 
furniture had been moved in and the housekeeping 
operations had commenced. 

The institutions of this country had taken 
rather definite shape before our friends from con- 
tinental Europe had begun to congregate in great 
numbers on this side of the water. Matters of 
social custom, of Sabbath observance, and of re- 
ligious faith, had already assumed forms quite well 
defined, forms however against which continental 
peoples have thrust themselves with an insistance 
unrelieved by any symptoms of modesty or com- 
punction. 

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Having Forgotten seemingly that they were 
admitted into the American family only on suffer- 
ance, they have in many instances officiously let 
about to reorganize the housekeeping and in some 
cases even gone so far as to pitch the original 
householders out of the back door, as in the 
present instance where the protest made by parents 
of foreign extraction is that our schools should be 

regulated to meet the wants of 20 per cent, of the 
school children. It is not a question of animosity 
on our part, hut of simple every da)' fairness. If 
you take a stranger into your home you will tender 

to him the hospitality of a room that he can con- 
sider his, and if he has an)- little eccentricities o\ 
habit you will let him feel free to go off into his 
room and exploit them, but you will not propose 
to have those eccentricities interfere with the es- 
tablished regulations of your household, and if he 
is a gentleman he will not want them to interfere. 
And the feeling of respect that I have for the 
Hebrew people in our midst is such that I do not 
believe that it is more than a small minority of 
them that are responsible for the present disturbed 
situation. 

The City Superintendent is reported as saying 
that there is no occasion for what he politely styles 
the present "rumpus." I would only say in reply 
to that that it looks exceedingly much as though 
it were the present "rumpus" that has thus far 
prevented his communicating to the teachers of 
the public schools the contents of the resolution 
adopted by the Hoard of Education last February; 
and it is not too much to expect perhaps that the 
influence of that same "rumpus" will operate to 

7 



hold him to the same Fabian policy of delay till 
after the 25th of December.* 

Only a single word more relative to this general 
matter. It is faith in God, and faith in God as 
revealed to us by Jesus Christ, that lies at the basis 
of our national history and of our national pros- 
perity ; so that any man or men who has come to 
us from abroad with a desire to better his condi- 
tion, but who seeks to blacken the face of God or 
to obliterate the name of Christ, to that extent 
seeks to destroy the very influence that has pro- 
duced the prosperity that he has come across the 
Atlantic to have a share in. 

Now, — to dismiss all that matter, — I have been 
far longer time than I intended in reaching my 
main purpose of specifying two or three occasions, 
general occasions, of devout gratitude. 

And I mention first our chief federal executive, 
the President of the United States. Leaving out 
of view all those points of temperament and of 
policy that some of us, perhaps all of us, would be 
disposed to criticize, there remains the fact of Mr. 
Roosevelt's unquestioned, and I should say, un- 
questionable, integrity. A man of that character 
standing as the representative head of a great 
nation is an enginery of personal uplift beyond the 
power of language to express or even of thought 
to compute. Nobility of character when raised 
upon a pedestal of such commanding position tells 
tremendously for national dignity, social better- 
ment and individual ennoblement. Virtue, even 

* The foregoing was written two days ago. The action taken by the Board of 
Education yesterday, as reported in the papers this morning, shows that I was correct in 
my prognostication. From the amiable breadth of sentiment evinced by the Board at its 
yesterday's session one might infer that the poor little innocents in our schools are to be 
free to worship God according to either the Christian, Jewish, Mohammedan or Confucian 
ritual. There is great virtue in agitation. 

8 



inconspicuous virtue, is always elevating, but it is 
virtue, purity of purpose, become evident and 
working along lines oi large procedure that 1 
arrests the attention, commands the respect, and 
lifts the tone of the common life. 

Queen Victoria was not probably the mere 
figure-head that she was at one time supposed to 
be, but was a very considerable factor in British 
and also in international politics. It w.is, howe 
the exalted and queenly character of the- woman, 
quite as much as her statesmanship, that has 
stamped her impress upon British and Continental 
life. And so of Mr. Roosevelt. As the German 
poet has said: "It is personality that prevails." It 
was the irresistible sovereignty of personality that 
enabled him to achieve what will probably prove 
to be the crowning act of his theatrical life, the 
mediation that brought to a conclusion the Russo- 
Japanese War. 

And I doubt if there is any young man in this 
country, especially if unincumbered by political 
and partisan prejudices, to whom manhood does 
not count for more because of what Theodore 
Roosevelt has been and is, simply as a man, vigor- 
ous, generous and pure. And it is tremendously 
to our credit, the tense bonds of warm attachment 
which bind us to him. Men are to be measured 
by the quality of the things that they admire and 
and love, and by that token the common devotion 
of the American heart to "Teddy" discloses the 
fine, sweet quality of the American heart. 

As the second ground of devout gratitude I 
would mention the Chief Executive of our own 
State, Gov. Hughes. The instances have been 

9 



exceedingly rare in our political history where a 
man untrained in political experience has forged 
to the front with the expedition of Mr. Hughes, 
and as quickly as he won for himself so large a 
place in local regard and even in national thought. 
We all remember the tender solicitude expressed 
in certain quarters lest his political immaturity 
might prove a fatal handicap when he should 
come to the practical discharge of gubernatorial 
obligations. The idea has probably occurred to a 
good many of us since that time that the greener 
a man may be as a politician the riper it may be 
possible for him to become as a statesman ; that 
practical politics has nothing in common with 
statesmanship, and that large effectiveness in pub- 
lic life is liable to be precluded by a preliminary 
training- in its small subtleties. Better be almost 
anything than an expert. 

Although we are a republic and the people, 
therefore, supposed to be the determining factor, 
the interesting feature of his election was that the 
greatest obstacle lying between him and the gov- 
ernorship was the fact that nobody but the people 
cared for him. The experts, — the men without 
visible means of support, and with whom politics 
is a business, — had taken the accurate measure of 
the man, and were averted from him by the large- 
ness of his proportions, the distinctness of his per- 
ceptions and the cleanliness of his impulses. It 
was, therefore, left to the people to nominate him, 
left to the people to elect him, left to the people 
to stand by him, — a loyalty which the Governor 
has magnificently reciprocated. And while there 
is not that passionate affection for Mr. Hughes 

10 



that sometimes subsists between a people and its 
rulers, there is that intense confidence felt in the 
man, not simply in his integrity, which is as per- 
l. ( t, probably, as in the instance of Mr. Roosevelt, 
— but iu those supplementary qualities needed to 
accompany integrity in order that its possessor 
may be qualified to fill positions of large and deli- 
cate public tru >t. 

There is, for instance, in our Governor's method 
of approaching difficult questions and meeting em- 
barrassing situations, a quiet poise of mind which, 
while yielding results less dramatically entertain- 
ing, and less volcanic either in the amount of 
blinding illumination thrown into the air or 
scorching ruination furrowing the ground, accom- 
plishes the ends had in view, in a manner both 
effective and sanitary. 1 le would not be a man to 
mend a delicate Swiss watch in the use of a sledge- 
hammer. His method of operation might require 
more time than would be expended by a black- 
smith, but when he got through mending there 
would be some of the watch left. 

So far as I know we have never had an official 
who more perfectly accommodated himself to the 
genius of American institutions, who filled more 
completely and devotedly just the position consti- 
tutionally created for the executive to fill, without 
symptoms of any nervous and impetuous ambition 
to enlarge that position to a wider area. 

He has, therefore, for a year been settled down 
to the arduous but straightforward business of 
caring for the interests of the State* of New York 
in its entirety and in its individual citizenship. 
He made it clear, in an address recently delivered 

i i 



here, that he considers a public official to be not a 
ruler of the people but a servant of the people, 
and, therefore, — to use his own words, — "strictly 
accountable to the people for every departure 
from the democratic ideal of office." Which is 
substantially the same thing as saying to the State 
at large and to each individual member of the 
State, " If in your judgment I have erred in my 
discharge of the duties which you have imposed 
upon me, be entirely frank to tell me so." 

Now the existence of that sort of spirit is what 
is going to save us from drifting in the direction 
of government monarchically administered, a tend- 
ency that is always so quick to assert itself in any 
republic, and a tendency, too, that even at present 
is exciting among us an amount of silent misgiving. 
There is nothing, then, in the administration of 
such a man as our Governor as would even suggest 
a comparison between him and Czar Nicholas, or 
even between him and Emperor William. So that, 
if we were any of us to take sharp exception to 
some executive act of his, we should never be trem- 
blingly solicitous lest he or any of his friends 
should lodge against us a charge of "conspiracy." 

In all these references I only want that we 
should gratefully realize the distinguished privilege 
and advantage that this State enjoys in having as 
its chief executive a man who by his word expresses, 
and in his administration embodies, the American 
idea of "government 0/the people, by the people 
andyW the people." 

Mr. Hughes' disposition to accommodate him- 
self to the position constitutionally created for 
the executive is farthermore evinced and, in 

12 



view of the circumstances <>f the times, strikingly 

evinced, by the scrupulous way in which he holds 

himself inside that one particular department of 
government which he was chosen to fill. What I 
mean is that he does not tryto be the whole thing. 

Not onl\ does h«- not impair the dignity of his 

high office by mixing indiscriminately in questions 
that lie quite outside the domain <»l government, 
and questions touching which his opinion would 
have no more intrinsic value than would that of a 
thousand or ten thousand other men from among 

his constituents, hut even inside the governmental 
domain he neither trespassed upon the functions 
of legislation by usurping legislative prerogative 
nor upon the functions of the judiciary by putting 
upon statutes or upon the State constitution an 
interpretation in pursuance of his own aims and 
ends. All I mean is that he understands that he 
was elected to a specially designated service, and 
the whole energy of the man is devoted to ren- 
dering that specially designated service, without 
bordering his proper function by a miscellaneous 
fringe of activity constitutionally relegated to 
spheres of official responsibility for which he is 
himself in no manner accountable. 

It lies quite in line with that to observe for an 
instant the attitude of serenity and of undistracted 
devotion to official duty which the Governor is 
maintaining in just these days when so much is 
being said and so much more is bein<»- thought 
that bears so directly upon him personally and 
upon his future. It is the limit, if I may so say, 
it is the very acme of Spartan self-mastery for a 
Governor of the State of New York to do nothing 

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013 981 064 8 

but mind his own business with unabated and un- 
flustered industry at a time when millions of Am- 
erican voters are earnestly and enthusiastically 
considering him as a presidential possibility. In 
the moral sense of the word, it is simply colossal. 
There is nothing in his case, — is there? — to remind 
us of that chronic candidate who now, for nearly 
a decade, has kept himself ostentatiously dangling 
before an indeterminate public. There is nothing 
in his case either that would warrant even a Jus- 
tice of the Supreme Court in charging him with 
"playing hide and seek." "Hide," yes; but not 
"seek." The attitude of Mr. Hughes at the pres- 
ent time is to me most impressive. There is in 
his attitude an irresistible dignity, an unimpeachable 
self-mastery, a gigantic aversion to the idea of 
making personal capital out of responsible oppor- 
tunity, that more than any other one quality of 
the man challenges my inexpressible respect and 
confidence, and makes me long and pray that the 
time may come when we may be even more 
thankful than we are to-day, and when Divine 
Providence, speaking through the suffrages of the 
people, shall say to him : " Thou hast been faithful 
over a few things, I will make thee ruler over 
many things." 

And yet, dear friends, these are not the things 
we think of most when in the stillness and privacy 
of our own hearts we offer sacrifice of thanks- 
giving upon the altar of our devotion. It is then 
that the large matters of the outer world recede 
from view and that our loves rest caressingly upon 
the quieter and closer mercies that make living to 

14 




a? 






be sweet and beautiful, whether upon o/ir ace 
tomeil blessings that are so numerous ai*l sorm 



them so precious, or upon some newly arrived 
luxury of experience thai adds yet .mother touch 

of fineness to our life ami yet another ray of 

brightness to our hope. 

For all these things, small and great, old and 

mw, manifest or hidden, we render Thee thanks, 
Good Father, who art ever mindful of Tin children 

and whose thoughts toward us are always thoughts 
of lovingkindness and tender mercy. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 981 064 8 



